


Maybe Alone, Never Forsaken

by Mister_Fox



Category: Bleach, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Blind Character, Kisuke is the big damn hero this time lmao, M/M, Monsters, Rescue, Role Reversal, the ot3 is only a Mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24269950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mister_Fox/pseuds/Mister_Fox
Summary: It's time for Kisuke to pull a big damn rescue, for once.Not having to trade away his humanity would have been a bonus, but, well, it should be worth it in the end.UraIchi Week 2020 - Day 2, Role Reversal
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke, Urahara Kisuke/Kurotsuchi Mayuri/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	Maybe Alone, Never Forsaken

Ichigo walks through the strange, empty fields, the fog around him so thick that everything fades to nothing only a few steps away from him, the rain a thick drizzle that makes everything duller and more desolate.

He’s been walking in this fog, alone, for so long he… doesn’t remember why he came here.

There is nothing here. There is no one here.

He is so alone, and there is nothing around him, nowhere to go, nothing to see, nothing to do but follow the still river next to him, further, deeper into the fog.

He glances down.

There’s a name scrawled on his arm, the ink faded and running from the rain.

Kuchiki Rukia.

It feels like that’s… supposed to mean something. But when he tries to think about it, to know what it means, the fog presses closer until the greyness feels like its seeping into his very brain.

Where is he? He wants to go home, but he can’t remember the way.

He lost his mother in a rain like this, on a riverbank like this.

He was left alone.

He’s been forsaken.

* * *

“Where is he?” Kisuke asks as he strides to Aizen’s office, the dog at his heels letting out continuous soft growls.

Not unexpected, considering the whole place reeks of fear and monsters. And the dog is meant to hunt both.

That should draw Aizen’s attention if Kisuke’s presence alone doesn’t do it.

Unless the man’s grown so comfortable in his seat of power that he’s stopped paying attention to what’s going on within every centimetre of his dear Institute and wouldn’t notice that a rival Avatar is strolling down its corridors. And demanding answers.

Still, If Aizen doesn’t Know or Notice Kisuke’s new allegiance, he’s not going to bring it up himself. Or make use of the gifts he was given within Aizen’s sight.

If his dog doesn’t give the game away, or some good reason to scare him doesn’t come up.

Well...perhaps he could plead ignorance about the dog’s nature. It’s not like he could have seen what breed it was if he had picked it out at some kennel or something, and animal monsters sometimes do pick humans to be friends with.

The door is where he remembers it being, even if it does take him a second to find the handle, and walk inside the room.

“Where is he?” Kisuke repeats, trying to figure out if there’s anyone in the room. Is that shallow breathing hidden under the quiet growling of his dog, or a breeze through an open window?

“...This is certainly an interesting turn of events. A supposedly dead Archivist, strolling into my office,” Aizen drawls from somewhere to the left. Sitting at his desk, most likely. “If you are the original version, of course, and not a Stranger’s puppet wearing his skin.”

Kisuke turns his head in the direction of the voice and takes off his dark glasses.

“Ah. The genuine article, then. So you found out the way to leave my employ that doesn’t involve dying. I have to congratulate you on your cleverness. And your determination too, I suppose - my, what did you use to leave such marks?” Aizen sounds genuinely fascinated, and Kisuke restrains a shiver at the picture that his mind conjures up, of what expression must be on his face right now. “Tell me, were there side effects of killing the monster I was incubating in your soul?”

His dog growls louder, and Kisuke tsks at it. Why couldn’t he have been given a better trained one...

However much he would like Aizen to be very permanently dead, that’s not possible, not yet, not unless he wants the fifty or so people working for the Institute full-time to die. Never mind the fact that Ichigo and his friends would be included in that. He needs to give them the option to escape- and he doubts Aizen is that close to enacting whatever his final grand plan is.

He’d need to have Ichigo in reach to do that.

“Where is your Archivist?” Kisuke asks, acting perfectly calm.

Aizen laughs, softly, and it makes his skin prickle. “Have you forgotten? With the loss of your position, you can no longer force the truth out of people- no more than you can, well, see it.”

The dog growls like it can feel the flicker of anger in his heart, and Kisuke can imagine it baring its long, sharp teeth. Maybe it is responding to his emotions, and not his verbal cues.

“Obi. Stand down.”

The dog keeps growling, clearly more interested in getting some new bones to gnaw on than Kisuke’s orders.

He repeats, louder. “Obi-Wan-Wan. Stand down.”

The growling ceases.

There’s a choked noise from Aizen’s direction, something between disbelief and a surprised giggle. “You… named your dog… Woof-woof. Obi-woof-woof.”

“Well, he certainly is my only hope of getting around, these days.”

Yoruichi had found the name amusing. Tessai facepalmed. Mayuri said he wasn’t going to speak to him for three days because he didn’t want to catch a case of idiocy, although he made no promises to stop the irritable texts about Kisuke getting involved with the Entities after all the trouble he went to leave them behind the first time.

Aizen inhales sharply.

Ah, so he must have finally paid enough attention to the dog to notice what, exactly, it is.

“Did you know your seeing-eye dog is a hound of Terminus?” He sounds uneasy, for the first time that Kisuke can remember. Kisuke might not be much of a threat to him, right now. Even a Hunter would likely not be able to put down Aizen without access to his original body.

But a grim hound? Well. That is a different matter.

“I am not particularly fond of dogs, so lovely as this conversation has been… your lovely successor is currently chasing after his friend, taken back by her oh-so-forsaken family.”

The Forsaken? For Ichigo? That is...

“What did you do?”

“Oh, I have nothing to do with this. It is your successor’s fault that he befriended a Kuchiki, even if she was working here for a short while. Her family is unhappy about that, and have finally taken action when it looked like she was close to changing sides.”

“This is your seat of power. If you had not wanted them to find their way here, they would not have taken your minions.”

Aizen must be smiling because he says nothing.

“If you actually do want your... friend, I assume, back, you should hurry up. I’m afraid his ties to the girl may lead him further into the Lonely than his love for others can lead him out of.”

For a moment, just before he leaves, Kisuke looks.

Aizen is sitting at his desk, one hand under it, possibly looking for a weapon, watching him warily. The office is full of bookshelves as always, although Kisuke has no idea if there are the same titles on the shelves as before. The walls… the walls seem to have splatters over them. Remnants of old bloodstains? Quite a few people must have died in this office, for that many stains. Or something got either very fleshy or very enthusiastic about dismemberment at some point.

Whatever it is, bacteria swarm over it far more enthusiastically than over the rest of the surface of the walls, invisible to all but him.

“Have a nice day,” he says, looking directly at where Aizen’s eyes should be on the glowing silhouette he can make out.

As he leaves, he feels a slight- surge of something. A little influx of energy.

Someone just got a little more afraid of death, thanks to his actions.

It is not dissimilar to getting a surge from a live statement. And no more pleasant.

He’ll have to watch out for that.

* * *

Almost everyone is afraid of death, at least a little bit.

Monsters and Avatars can find their victims, again and again, follow them around, tracking them by the fear they feel. The Distortion, Szayel. The Web-spinner Ichimaru.

Kisuke’s… never done this before. He doesn’t even know where to start looking. But he does have a dog.

And now he thinks he knows why he got it when he made a deal to get everything he needs to get Ichigo back.

* * *

There’s a sound in the distance, muted by the heavy fog.

A shuffling, a snarling. Footsteps.

He can’t bring himself to get off the wet ground, the rain pouring over him.

“-Ichigo!” Someone is shouting his name. A familiar voice.

It’s so hard to care.

Something wet presses against his hand, licking his palm.

A stick of some sort prods his leg, it’s sweeping motion across the ground interrupted by his prone form.

“Ichigo?”

That’s Kisuke’s voice. Why is Kisuke here? Why did he follow him here?

Here- into the Lonely.

Shit.

Ichigo opens his eyes.

Kisuke’s pulling him into a sitting position. The wet thing licking his hand is a tongue, belonging to a large, ghostly-white dog, it’s head strangely skull-like. Not that dogs’ heads aren’t the shape of their skulls, but there was something… weird with this one.

“Ichigo, say something, please.”

“...Since when do we own a dog?”

Kisuke’s startled laugh makes the fog around them recoil, repulsed by what is anathema to it.

“And why are you wearing black robes?”

“Pardon? What… ah.”

Ichigo blinks, and- the robes aren’t gone, but they look- like an overlay, a ghostly impression.

The way the wolf-head of that Hunter wasn’t really there, the way the flames weren’t really trailing from the head of that woman.

His powers must be working again, if only a little, as the End’s influence repels the Lonely around them.

The End that Kisuke is bound to, now, for Ichigo’s sake.

“We should not tarry, Ichigo. Your friend is likely far deeper than you are, and while I am confident I could get us out of here with ease, I am not certain I could get us back in. This place… repels me. It does not want death to come to its victims.”

Right.

Rukia.

“Thank you for saving me, Kisuke. Come on, I… I know where she is in this place.”

“Excellent. The faster we return home and Mayuri gets to shout at you for dragging me back into this entire Entity affair, the better.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are welcome and much appreciated, and help me write!  
> Here's a link to [Cywscross' UraIchi Server](https://discordapp.com/invite/ADFnKTZ#_=_)


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